Chapter 1
They didn’t stay long in Riverside, and Kors was sincerely glad about this. He himself didn’t understand why he was so afraid of this place. It was somehow fatal for him. Here he attended the council of commanders before the attack on the Fort, and then he was an indisputable authority for his black warriors, he was one of them. Surrounded by his companions, he proudly sat in a place of honor at the head of the table, covered with a maroon velvet tablecloth, which Valentine had obtained from no one knew where that day. And he also sat at this table later, but the tablecloth on the table was crumpled and dirty. He sat alone in an empty house, his shoulders slumped and his posture of the chosen master forgotten – an outcast with a painted face, with a body covered with patterns of unclean ones, humiliated and turned into a slave.
Kors diligently drove these painful memories away from him. On that terrible night in this abandoned, decaying village, the Demon showed him his strength, but, in the end, Kors remained alive, and nothing seemed to have changed. Or so it seemed. But when, by the will of fate, he found himself in this cursed place, deeply hidden memories and emotions treacherously began to surface, spinning into a whirlpool of heavy thoughts and not giving rest. And Kors was well aware of the fact that he couldn’t calmly enter that room with a vile rat swarming in the corner.
The humans, the black warriors of Zagpeace and Tol, rode a few marches ahead as always, while Kors still commanded the unclean ones and rode with them. They were not particularly in a hurry, but they didn’t stop overnight either, resting no more than a couple of hours in a row. His captain, Parky, kept order in a long line of carts and numerous carts of various colors, loaded to the top with various goods. Periodically, he drove forward to Kors, and reported to his commander that everything was in order, or, on the contrary, said: “…one of the carts had a broken wheel, and they were a little behind, but they would fix it soon.”
“That’s because you didn’t properly distribute the load inside, and stuffed too much without thinking about the correct distribution of weight and pressure on the wheels,” Kors explained in an instructive manner, distracting himself from his gloomy thoughts with a conversation.
He looked at the bright black dots tattooed under the eyes of the unclean one, and involuntarily repeated to himself: “The last warning, the last warning… and how many warnings have I myself received during this time, so presumptuously casting them aside? They didn’t make tattoos under my eyes, but it looks like I got in trouble more than you, Ark.”
And Parky, it seemed, heard him, but didn’t say anything, and, having reported, returned back to the carts.
Next to Kors, but slightly behind him, rode Adrian. He was dressed in his warrior’s clothes, and his rather grown hair, with the help of some fixatives of the unclean ones, was beautifully set up in a high comb. Kors didn’t forbid him this, and from time to time turned to him, giving some simple instructions in the style of “give and bring”, using Adrian as his servant and slave. Adrian carried out everything.
“Adrian,” Kors told him, “I haven’t changed my mind, and I don’t take my words back. I still agree to let you go to the Unclean Limit when we return to the Black City. To release you to your wife and children. You are an unclean half-blood, and your father, as far as I understand, is a rich and noble true black. You have the blood of the chosen race, do you understand that?”
“Yes, sir,” Adrian replied indifferently, “but there is no turning back for me.”
That was his answer invariably, and his tattooed face remained as impenetrable as his thoughts.
And Kors, on the contrary, now even wanted to free Adrian. The uncleans made him a slave, punishing him for cowardice. The demon gave Adrian to Kors, knowing absolutely well that he was dooming the slave to torment. But now, Kors, to spite the Demon, did not want to torment Adrian any more.
Nik and Arel also often rode very close to Kors. He could see the Demon, and from this, he only felt worse.
Physically, it seemed, Kors more or less recovered and could spend many hours on the road, in the saddle, feeling neither pain nor weakness, but morally… Morally, he was simply crushed, and in the monotonous path between the endless desert hills, every now and then stumbling his eyes on such a bright spot of mop of white hair, Kors couldn’t help but think of Nik. He couldn’t help but remember:
“They are on their way from the Ore Town to the Crimson Rock. One of the haunts.
Kors combs Nik neatly, pushing his platinum white hair up from his forehead and temples. He carefully clips them with hairpins, planning to continue to braid his braids or make a tail, but suddenly he notices how cute Nik is with his hair pulled back a little and at the same time with fluffy thick strands sticking out a little further on the sides. Kors puts down the hairbrush and leaves Nik like that, admiring him and seeing that one naughty thin strand has already jumped out of his pinned up bangs and lies on the face of his beautiful boy. This unbearably touches Kors, he looks at the naughty hair sticking out on the sides of his face and slightly shifted back, and they really remind him of the fluffy long ears of a cute puppy. Kors laughs, and Nik purses his lips in displeasure and shakes his head in annoyance, not wanting Kors to laugh at him, and another thin strand of white spills out of the mass of his hair.”
Nik, standing aloof, spits quickly to the side, spitting out of his mouth as sharply and far as Lis fires bullets from his musket.
Kors literally freezes in shock:
“Stop it,” he hisses, “put on your mask immediately!”
Kors knows that in the mask, even if Nik moves the lower shield as far forward and upward as possible, he still won’t be able to spit so valiantly. Nik, realizing that Kors is dissatisfied with him, squints slightly in his direction and quickly puts on his mask. And later, in their camping tent, Kors rips it off his face and hits his son on the lips with his palm, straight from the shoulder, backhand:
“Don’t you ever do that! Don’t you dare spit like a beast!” Kors yells at him.
Nik shrinks and tries to shield his lips with his palms, but doesn’t resist and remains silent. He doesn’t look at Kors, doesn’t raise his eyes, although his face expresses obvious displeasure. And Nik never spit on the ground or to the side in front of his father again.
